Are Homemade Organic Fertilizers the Future of Cannabis Cultivation?

When embarking on cannabis cultivation, you must have carried out some research right and noticed the outstanding amount of products you come across that all have the intention to make your life easier by boosting your cannabis yield? Though these options are good, trying out a new option such as organic fertilizers might not be such a bad idea especially when this idea saves you some money while boosting your yields.

This new method might not particularly be okay for some as they prefer the abundant fertilizer products available; but it has become apparent that people are increasingly turning towards or embracing the natural or organic fertilizers as time passes. This has led to the formation of two peculiar schools of thought regarding cannabis cultivation, that is the modern and traditional schools of thought. The former belief in the adoption of the various new scientific advancements to grow the cannabis plant by boosting growth and reducing deficiencies while the latter belief in returning to earlier methods of cultivation especially because they believe it is healthier and more environmentally friendly in the long run. Many experienced cannabis cultivators have adopted their preferred method but the new growers need to be informed of the pros and cons of each method before embarking on anything.

Majorly, it has been found out that most store-bought products are quite expensive even though they do not offer a lot of value than the homemade concoctions. They sometimes even lose value as time goes to the high water content of the composition. This is because plant physiology and chemistry have placed some limits which makes it difficult to get all the plant’s needs at once.

For quite a few cultivators, they find that creating their homemade concoctions have some nice benefits such as

Cost-saving- you do not get to spend as much as getting a store-bought fertilizer

Getting a better understanding of your plant’s nutrition

Healthier and bigger yields

Understanding Plant Nutrition

The cannabis plant needs a lot of nutrients and proper care for its growth and for this to happen, the base soil must be well supplemented. Some recommend the brewing of bacteria referred to as compost tea for the soil which helps to feed the best soil minerals and protect your plant roots against common diseases.

What plants eat and need for development and protection can be divided into two major categories, the micro, and macronutrients

Macronutrients are the nutrients which play major roles in the plant’s development and health and they comprise of 3 major nutrients: Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium (NPK)

Micronutrients also referred to as trace elements are minerals and metals that are also needed by the plant but in small quantities and this does not mean that they are not as important as the macronutrients. They include iodine, zinc, calcium, iron, copper, selenium, magnesium, molybdenum among others.

What most fertilizer manufacturers do is that they combine these nutrients and try to stabilize them for the journey ahead which is its entire lifecycle from bottling to usage. However, the key to a good yield or harvest is having the correct measurement of the nutrients at the right time to take maximum advantage of what they have to offer the plant. Despite this, it is usually still preferable to make use of a homemade organic fertilizer which is not only better but also easier and makes a whole lot of difference in terms of yield. This is because you can get them cheaper and also easily make them at home with your implements while still being safe and beneficial to the environment. An example is composting used soil through the use of organic food waste which will rejuvenate it with all the necessary nutrients that are important for your plant.

Common Nutrient Sources

The great thing about making homemade organic fertilizers is that the required nutrients for your plant are easily accessible from things you can find around you or at home. For example, the macronutrient nitrogen can be gotten from bat guano, crustaceous meal, worm castings, and even human urine, however, it has to be diluted with water at ratio 10:1 to prevent root burning. Phosphorus can be gotten from chicken manure, bone and fish meals, fermented banana peels and rock dust while potassium can be gotten from wood ash, siliceous rock, compost, and kelp. Micronutrient can be gotten from limestone, chalk, azomite, dolomite, clay and magnesium sulfate (Epsom salts), other effective organic fertilizers include animal feces mixed with a substrate, coffee grounds, and compost fruit peel.

One thing is quite sure, the fact that many connoisseurs have found that organically grown cannabis is usually healthier, tastier and flavorful than its counterpart and this is why they have gravitated towards it. What this means is an increasing emergence of organic cannabis cultivation and the resulting increase in the usage of organic fertilizers.